


crowding space with

by brawlite



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Coercion, Falling In Love, Fuckbuddies, Gaslighting, Infidelity, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, No Resolution, Pining, a rather foggy view of reality for both of these dudes, ambiguity i guess, i mean i guess the ending isn't The Worst if you squint, is it really infidelity if you're dating a brain in a jar?, is the name of the game, lack of bodily autonomy, lets solve our problems by pretending they don't exist, mental distress, moral compass machine broke, no happy ending, not an au, probably some really bad coping mechanisms up in here, who needs love when you have a fuckbuddy who...you also love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 03:22:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15282498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawlite/pseuds/brawlite
Summary: A series of moments after convergence, after two became one became many: the distorted Fibonacci sequence of Hermann Gottlieb’s life.





	crowding space with

\--

 _safe_  
_he is --_  
_i am --_  
_we are --_  
_\-- safe_

\--

It’s over.

Reality twists and jolts in a violent, vicious swirl. Colors and emotions and memories. Thoughts that are not his own. None of it is his own -- all of it is his own. It’s dizzying. Breathtaking. Phenomenal.

Absolutely inhuman, too.

Unquestionably.

   But --

No.

 _No_. It’s over. They’re safe.

In this moment, shoulder to shoulder with his most loathed and simultaneously his most loved coworker, Hermann has never felt more _whole_. More Alive. They’re holding each other upright, just barely -- _panting, grinning, vomiting --_ and he has -- _they have_ \-- never felt happier. It is the culmination of years of work, endless hours of calculations, and millions upon millions of numbers and hopes, combined.

It is truly a magnificent day to stop the apocalypse indeed.

\--

The following days pass in a haze of commotion. A blur.

Every hour is filled to the brim with celebrations and planning anew, every moment overflowing with joy and uncertainty. Panic and chaos and prayer are replaced with _life_. With hope. The change is astounding. The change is dizzying.

\-- Is it truly over? How can it possibly _truly_ be over, after so many years? --

How can life begin again with everything so uprooted, so turned on its head?

But the optimism of humanity has prevailed, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, Hermann has _faith_ in the future.

The possibilities are endless and bright and warm.

\--

Falling into bed with Newton Geiszler is easy.

It is simply the foregone conclusion to an equation Hermann had solved years ago, but had been unwilling to carry out to its end, uncomfortable with mixing work and his personal life. Uncomfortable with the annoyance and frustration and anger between his collegue and himself. Uncomfortable with intimacy, with attachment to anything but numbers and order. Uncomfortable with calling his own bluff.

But life had intervened -- or rather, impending mortality had crashed down upon them, and so --

   -- the heat of the moment, and all of its parts.

Hermann had found himself tangled in the sheets with familiar skin, with hands he knew and felt like his own. He had found himself over, under, and overwhelmed by touch, basking in something that felt a lot like destiny, as absurd as that sounds.

But Hermann is not a man for personal dalliances such as this. He is not someone to be so easily lead by the pull of his hormones, the endless tug of something primal in his brain. He is not one to yield when circumstances and common sense say otherwise.

He tells himself that it is simply just one standalone juncture, another number in the fibonacci sequence of his life, moments compounding upon moments. And yet -- he cannot escape it, cannot forget it once it has happened.

A hand, flat on the plane of Newton’s vibrantly painted stomach.

The press of lips to a warm neck.

A kiss, slow and lazy, drinking intimacy into every breath.

All of it -- he cannot simply dismiss.

\--

 _please,_  
_again please_  
_\-- god, i don’t want to be alone again_  
_p l e a s e_

\--

Hermann’s resolve folds too easily. It’s as if he barely even tries.

“I shouldn’t,” he tells Newton, over coffee one evening. At a cafe Newton has dragged him to, against multitudes of protests and compounding fatigue.

“Come on, Hermann,” Newton says with a grin full of teeth, reaching across the space between them to wrap a warm hand around Hermann’s wrist. Newton’s fingers are tan against pale skin, his sleeves pushed up around his elbows to expose the infinity of colors swirling on his forearms. His skin shows their combined history, an appreciation for the monsters they helped to stop. A constant reminder of their victory.

Oddly, Hermann finds that he likes the tattoos more than he used to. He is growing increasingly fonder of them by the day.

Perhaps that is a consequence of their drift, their shared neural handshake.

Or, perhaps it is simply his increased exposure to Newton’s skin. His yearning for more. He’s already seen all of it, every inch of the tattoo that stretches over Newton’s body -- but once just isn’t enough, no matter how photographic Hermann’s memory is.

“You know you wanna,” Newton says.

“This sort of arrangement --” Hermann starts, then stops, unwilling or perhaps unable to finish the thought.

“I know,” Newton says, and Hermann has the odd feeling that his thoughts are not always as private as they once were. “It’s not your thing. But it’s definitely my thing, which means that it _is_ kinda your thing, now, too. Sorry, my dude.”

Newton’s fingers tighten around Hermann’s wrist, his thumb brushing right over Hermann’s pulse. He doesn’t sound sorry at all. Hermann shudders and thinks rather desperately of falling into bed with Newton again.

And the thing is: Newton is right.

It is another foregone conclusion, just one more number in a long sequence, steadily growing in weight.

\--

 _he is --_  
_so warm, so soft, so tender, so delicate._  
_he is -- perfect._

\--

Newton is _busy_. He’s always busy, always running around.

“This gig, man,” Newton tells him, mouth full of dumplings from the dive he has dragged Hermann to, yet again. “It’s _baller_.”

Hermann hadn’t fussed, hadn’t balked, hadn’t even batted an eye at Newton’s choice to leave the PPDC. He took his -- naive, foolish, irrelevant -- hurt and pushed it deep down, further than he thought possible and had pressed on, continued on -- without Newton constantly at his side.

“Please _chew_ , Newton,” Hermann reminds him, after a careful sip of jasmine tea. It is unsweetened, of course -- he only yields to _that_ strange desire in the privacy of his own home. Newton’s sweet tooth still lingers on his tongue.

“Yeah, yeah,” Newton says. Takes another bite and continues on, as if he hasn’t even heard, consumed by the thoughts in his own head and his hunger for inexpensive scallion dumplings. “Like, _god_ , the facilities, Herm’, I’m telling you. And the technology. And the _pay._ ”

Hermann must admit that the PPDC salary is rather meager. But he doesn’t want for much, doesn’t have a taste for the ornate like Newton does. He can get by, content with his work and his newly found social life -- even if said social life only ever involves his ex-lab-partner.

“Indeed,” Hermann says, trying not to look at the half-chewed food in Newton’s open mouth. And trying, desperately, to actually be affronted when he _does_ notice, instead of foolishly and strangely charmed. He fails.

“You should really come by sometime, get a tour of the facilities,” Newton offers. “We’re working on some cool, cool stuff, dude. I think you’d be into it.”

And it’s not that Hermann is explicitly uninterested in Newton’s work, because he’s not. Of course, he still is rather repulsed by all of the guts and the gore and the viscera, but he knows that that’s also a part of him now, threaded through his subconscious like a network of brilliant blue veins. It’s not even that he’s jealous of the opportunity, of the possibilities stretched out ahead of Newton that do not mirror his own. It’s simply that Hermann _doesn’t want to_. He wants the distance, the separation between the two of them.

If he lets himself too close, he knows he’ll never be able to pull himself back, caught in the gravitational well surrounding Dr. Newton Geiszler.

Hermann knows himself, and he knows Newton -- and he knows what he can and cannot have. He has come to terms with it, accepted it like a law of mathematics, of nature, of the cosmos.

He is fine with it, he truly is.

\--

Usually, they crash together like neutron stars in nameless, anonymous hotel rooms at conferences, at meetings. There’s never a touch of personal on the walls, on the beds, nothing to give the space more depth, more feeling. It’s alright, though, because Hermann doesn’t need to add more weight to this thing between them, this ever-present pull. He doesn’t need to multiply the emotion he feels for Newton, doesn’t need to add to the memories with clear and vivid memories of places, of times.

In a very uncharacteristic move, Hermann lets it all blur together.

It feels like a very Newton Geiszler decision, a very chaotic treatment of time and memory and sentiment. Hermann feels stuck in a constant loop of it all, tumbling over and over -- trapped in the infinite spiral, and oddly accepting of his fate.

Then again, it’s not exactly torture, having Newton like this.

Letting Newton have him, too.

Perhaps it _is_ torture knowing that he cannot have more, that there is an invisible line there that he cannot cross.

They don’t ever talk about it, which is rather strange, as Newton talks endlessly about everything. And yet. He doesn’t, quite. Newton is all about words and gestures and intent, an endless wave of energy pulsating out from his center -- but he is also the furthest thing from an open book Hermann knows. He is the picture of open exuberant honesty, but Hermann -- Hermann knows better. He has been inside Newton’s head, knows that there is a wall there, an impenetrable barrier that no one but Newton himself can cross.

Newton’s mind is a private thing. Hermann was the invader, if only for a few flashing and neurally agonizing moments.

The connection of it is still a thread between them. Nothing concrete, but the faintest wisp of something that pulls him to Newton, something that carries the tiniest spark of emotion between the two of them. A drop of blood in the water from miles away, a pin dropping on the other side of a vast and quiet room, a heartbeat felt through layers of clothes. Something faint, something muffled -- but still, a connection.

Unignorable.

Unequivocal.

\--

 _want_  
_\--_  
_want **more**_

\--

“Not -- here,” Hermann says, against Newton’s lips.

Hermann’s lab in the PPDC is no longer private. Not that it was, before, with Newton -- but it would have worked for their current purposes. As the head scientist now, overseeing a team of mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, and so many others, Hermann has no space of his own, other than an office with a glass door. He cannot -- he _cannot_ do this, here.

“My place is a _mess_ ,” Newton says. “But we can totally go there, if you want. If you don’t mind the _entrails_ on the kitchen table.”

He says _entrails_ in Hermann’s accent.

Hermann knows he is exaggerating. There’s a playful spark to his words that thrums through his skin, something electric that worms its way into his bones, vibrating in delight. But still -- Hermann does not want it, does not want the mess, the warm chaos that is Newton. He doesn’t need to be invited into Newton’s space only to be forced out (no, never _forced_ , not quite -- it is simply _understood_ ) afterwards.

“Mine,” Hermann says, instead. Against perhaps better judgement. “We can go to mine.”

That is easier, somehow.

At least the emptiness afterward will be familiar.

A known quantity.

\--

With Newton spread out on dull grey sheets in the faint morning light, his skin is even more a beautiful tapestry than before. Illuminated and in stark contrast. A work of art.

Newton sleeps like the dead. It allows ample opportunity for Hermann to admire him without Newton’s careful eyes examining his every move. He can touch each carefully drawn line on Newton’s skin. He can smooth his fingertips over blues and reds and greens as he follows the soft slopes of Newton’s body into the shadows.

Hermann is falling. He can feel it as his fingers linger on the curl of waves, over the inked terrain he vividly remembers getting. He is tumbling down, desperately grappling at anything for a handhold -- but it’s too late, he knows.

Newton has had a hold over him for years, now. There’s so very little he can do.

Mythology is not necessarily Hermann’s forte, nor even a passing interest, but his he remembers his father retelling him some of the stories when he was a child. He could never relate, before. The myths had always been too abstract, too overblown and emotionally wrought. There had been nothing to grasp on to, nothing to draw him in.

Now, he feels very much like Icarus, flying too close to the sun. Destined to plummet toward the earth, wings aflame while greed takes root in his heart, malignant and foolish all at once.

Still hopeful, still warm, even as he falls.

\--

“I think I kept some of your love of numbers,” Newton tells him, scribbling something down in a notebook.

Newton is on his third cup of coffee this morning. Hermann is drinking tea -- with sugar. He put it in the cup while Newton was looking the other way. Not ashamed -- just.

Just.

“Understandable,” Hermann says. “Numbers are, after all, more beautiful than simple biology.”

Which is unfair, as Hermann now knows the beauty of veins, of viscera, of nerve endings exploding into symphonies. But still, he is strangely fond of teasing Newton after all these years.

“ _Simple_?” Newton says, with an affronted but shark-like grin, teeth sharp and vicious and playful, like an overly friendly attack dog. A little something like a predator, too. “ _Simple biology?”_ he mimics -- and then goes off in a tear, a rant that Hermann truly enjoys hearing, enjoys provoking, where Newton extols the merits of his field, of biology and chemistry and everything he holds dear.

It’s a game, between the two of them. Familiar, just like the press of flesh against flesh. Primal, just like their time between the sheets. Messy, too. Like the viscera threatened.

Perhaps Newton is winning, after all.

\--

Hermann knows better.

It’s just, simply, that he has found that he doesn’t _care_.

Perhaps he has kept some of Newton’s hedonism, his impulsiveness, his lack of self control.

Or perhaps, Hermann didn’t know himself as well as he once had thought.

Perhaps, this is all him. And not Newton at all.

\--

 _together_  
_better, together_  
_combined, amalgamated, intertwined -- simply: more_

\--

“So,” Newton starts, chin digging in a little against Hermann’s back. He’s sprawled out, warm and solid, above Hermann. Pressing him down into the white hotel sheets. They’re on another months-long tour, city after city, talk after talk. Bed after bed.

Hermann hums a response, half dozing in the lazy moments afterward. Unhurried.

For a beat, Newton is silent. Only the white noise of the air conditioner fills the space between them.

“No, nevermind. This is probably a bad time to bring it up.”

 _That_ gets Hermann’s attention, has him shifting out from underneath Newton. He props himself up on the pillows, leaving a few inches between the two of them, pulling himself away from Newton’s warmth, his gravity.

Newton’s face is pulled into something like apprehension, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. He looks _concerned_ , which is not a typical Newton Geiszler expression. Immediately, Hermann fears the indescribable worst. The unknown -- it is always more terrifying than the known.

“Newton, what is it?”

“No, man, this is definitely a really bad time.”

Newton laughs nervously, hand hovering between them, reaching out and out -- and falling short of Hermann, landing in the canyon between them, fingers gripping at soft cotton instead of warm flesh.

Hermann feels the lack, the missed touch, acutely. Feels the ghost of it, drifting.

“Newton,” he says, aiming far away from the apprehension he feels. It comes out colder than he would have liked, which perhaps is fine, considering.

Considering.

“I met someone,” Newton says. He looks everywhere but at Hermann.

Even the noise of the air conditioner seems far away, suddenly. Muted, muffled. Caught underwater.

Hermann’s chest _aches_. Empty and raw, gnawing.

Hermann doesn’t say: _But you don’t_ do _that._

Hermann doesn’t say: _Why didn’t you say something earlier?_

It’s all a bit too little, too late. The present simply is -- there is never any room for ambiguity. No use in hoping for opportunities lost. For different eventualities. The multiverse exists, yes -- but _this_ is Hermann’s reality. And he must live in it.

So, Hermann nods and swallows the lump in his throat and says: “What’s their name?”

He doesn’t say: _But why not me?_

\--

All good things must come to an end.

\--

_keep him_

\--

They shouldn’t.

Hermann knows better.

And yet, when Newton shows up at Hermann’s house, late into the night, looking frazzled and harried and manic, Hermann lets him in. When Newton pushes him against the door and offers soft little pleas against Hermann’s mouth, desperate and pitiful, Hermann lets him. When he tugs Hermann back to his room, knowing the way without even _looking_ , hand so warm in Hermann’s own, Hermann lets him.

When he spreads Hermann out on the bed, hungry and hollow, Hermann lets him do that, too.

They shouldn’t, but that doesn’t seem to matter at all.

\--

Hermann doesn’t ask about Newton’s current fling.

He had known that this would happen; he had prepared himself, even. After saving the world, the two of them were deemed heroes, tugged together willingly and unwillingly into the spotlight. Hermann isn’t one to let that sort of thing go to his head, but -- well. As fond of Newton as he is, Hermann has spent years pouring over the man’s flaws just to find something petty to hold onto. He is _well aware_ of Dr. Newton Geiszler’s personal failings. Hermann had foreseen this sort of thing.

Newton has the potential to be oddly charismatic, when he so wishes, and he has never been never shy about his intentions. He is a man brimming with desire, with a certain kind of human greed. Hermann had known that others would find him appealing -- after all, Hermann had done the same, years ago. Before the fame, before the fortune. He can’t blame anyone at all.

And he certainly cannot blame Newton, who is only living his dreams.

He is a man who knows himself, a man who has always been dialed up to eleven. Newton deserves his time in the spotlight, just as he deserves to experience as many carnal delights as he so chooses.

Newton’s attentions are typically fleeting, his infatuations brief and whirlwind.

He is nothing like Hermann, who falls rather permanently.

_(Hermann, who has already irrevocably fallen, he knows.)_

There’s a trivial chance of anything lasting, anything actually _sticking_. Hermann is the only one seized in Newton’s true gravitational pull. Everyone else is mere space junk, momentarily caught and then propelled away simply because they strayed a little too close.

Hermann doesn’t ask because he doesn’t think it will last. He doesn’t think there’s a point to bending to that particular social nicety.

Perhaps he should have considered the possibility that it _could_ last.

Yes, that would have been sensible indeed.

\--

“I think you’d like her,” Newton says.

It makes Hermann feel a little sick, the fondness that threads through Newton’s voice as he combs careful fingers through Hermann’s hair. Like he’s transferring that affection into his actions with Hermann.

And it’s not that Hermann isn’t appreciative of Newton’s more sentimental of touches or his propensity toward emotional tenderness. It’s just that this moment, this tone, this shift -- it isn’t for Hermann. It feels wrong to capitalize on that, to enjoy it, even in a perverse and greedy way. To some extent, Hermann cannot stop himself from leaning into it, cherishing it for what it is on the surface. But he doesn’t have to _like_ it. And it doesn’t stop the guilt.

It _most definitely_ doesn’t stop the guilt.

The slick twist of it is inescapable after Newton slides from between Hermann’s sheets.

After a while, the tours and conferences had slowed, and the hotels had slowed with them. They are now left with Hermann’s place for their little rendezvous -- or Newton’s -- and Hermann absolutely will not fold on _that_ one. He cannot let himself. He must maintain some detachment from this. And that is, apparently, where his brain has drawn the line.

So, it is always at Hermann’s house, in Hermann’s space.

Where he is left _without_ once Newton leaves. Where he is left with his own clawing emptiness inside him, his own aching need left unfed.

Hermann watches Newton slide on a shirt, covering up his tattoos with expensive black cotton. Cuffs rolled all the way down to his wrists today. The fabric looks luxurious. It looks soft -- but Hermann wouldn’t dare reach out and touch, not now that the moment is over. There are lines upon lines with Newton, some blurred, some covered in barbs. Some, ever-shifting like the tides.

A misstep could topple it all, could set it all ablaze -- and, despite the guilt, despite the hurt, Hermann is unwilling to risk any of it.

“She wants to meet you, Herm’,” Newton says with a too-wide smile. He has the faintest of bruises on his throat from where Hermann kissed him too hard, from where he let his teeth dig in.

Hermann doesn’t let his eyes linger there too long, doesn’t mention it at all. Newton will likely notice before he gets home. And if he doesn’t -- well, they’re not too bad.

“Indeed,” Hermann says. “My schedule,” the words come out with a practiced frown.

“I know, man. But she’s flexible.” Newton laughs. “If you know what I mean.”

He winks.

Hermann’s stomach churns.

\--

Hermann does not want to meet the woman who is slowly prying Newton away from him.

He does not want to try to see where he fails to measure up. He knows himself, knows that he would never be able to stop comparing, would never be able to stop analyzing.

So he doesn’t put himself through that.

He closes that door, the one with hope and yearning behind it, and makes himself take a couple steps back.

\--

Hermann throws himself into his work because it is what he knows.

His recent explorations are for more influenced by Newton than he would ever truly admit -- _Kaiju blood, can you imagine? --_ but Hermann knows.

He knows the degree to which he cannot escape Newton’s influence.

\--

“I really want you two to meet. You’d get along great,” Newton says.

Again and again and again.

Every time, Hermann has an excuse, tried and true and trite.

“Please,” Newton whispers against Hermann’s hair. “It would mean a lot to me.”

and --

“You guys could talk numbers at each other for hours. I know you’d love that,” Newton pleads. He grabs Hermann’s hand, threads their fingers together over wrinkled sheets.

and --

“She wants to meet you,” Newton says, hand on Herman’s throat. Fingers at Hermann’s pulse, squeezing at every rush of breath. “You remind me so much of each other.”

\--

 _he is warm, he is perfect, he is_  
_fragile_  
_fragile_  
_fragile_  
_alike and unlike, too_  
_\--_  
_so h u m a n_

\--

They find the spaces in between moments.

There’s something relieving about letting Newton press him down against his sheets, trapping him, caging him underneath strong hands.

There is warmth there in his movements, in his touch, in his eyes. Heat, transferred between bodies, between mouths. In lengthy kisses, in teasing bites, in the brutal snap of hips against flesh.

When Hermann comes it is always with a bitten off shout. In the moments after, when he is finding his breath, when Newton is smoothing hands over his skin, Hermann wishes for all of the words he cannot say. He snags his teeth on them, choking at the bitter taste, and swallows them whole.

\--

Sometimes, Newton lets Hermann snare him, too.

But those moments are becoming slightly fewer and further between. It makes sense. Par for the course.

Hermann is trapped in Newton’s orbit, but Newton is free. Unencumbered by affection, by loneliness. By desire.

He can come and go as he pleases. He can _have_ what he pleases. Untethered, unobligated, uncaring.

It only makes sense.

\--

_more more more_

\--

Hermann yields too often.

It becomes a pattern. A calculable offense.

An addiction.

\--

It is difficult to say _no_ to Newton. To refuse him even in the slightest. It’s too easy to fall into his pull, to surrender to the lingering tug of the ghost drift between them, however faint it may be, now.

Hermann could truly fall into it, if he so desired -- but he cannot imagine that now, the heat of Newton’s thoughts surrounding his own, the chaos, the colors, the emotion. He stays away.

Hermann settles for the outskirts of it, the prickle of awareness of _someone else_ pressing in on his consciousness. He settles for second hand warmth, auxiliary comfort. The heat of the sun through thick leaves, the phantom touch of the wind through a winter coat.

Never once has Hermann been able to push himself from Newton’s grasp, never once has he been able to resist the lingering taste of Newton’s kisses.

Until --

They’re out to dinner in the neighborhood by Newton’s home, exploring a dive Newton so enjoys. The restaurant staff know him, serving the two of them without even giving them a chance to look at the menu. Hermann _would_ complain, but even he has to admit he’s more adventurous now. His tastes sway closer to Newton’s, unsurprisingly. He drinks the sweetened tea because it’s given to him that way, because Newton drinks it that way, too.

The food is good and the drinks that begin appearing after the majority of their meal is finished are even better.

The dessert, Hermann barely even remembers, though he knows he chased it down with a honey liquor that lingered thick and sweet on his tongue.

They paid. They must have.

They’re in an alley, outside. The air is heavy with the ocean, rolling with the faintest sea breeze.

“Come back to mine,” Newton says, lips chasing Hermann’s. He tastes like honey, or maybe -- maybe he’s falling into Newton’s head, tasting the sweetness on his own breath.

Newton drags him another couple steps. _Please_ , he says, into Hermann’s mouth, fingers grasping at Hermann’s sweater. _I need you_ , Newton says.

 _I want you_.

Hermann lets himself be pulled, led, drawn down unfamiliar city blocks, stopping and starting whenever they so please to interrupt their progress with a kiss. Hermann is dizzy and wanting, strung out and worn thin. He wants and he wants, and Newton is warm and familiar underneath his fingertips. Underneath his tongue.

Newton’s back hits a concrete wall when Hermann pushes him against it. He goes easy, willing, pliant, when Hermann presses their bodies close. It’s animalistic, the way Hermann shoves him, the way Newton’s hands grapple at the back of Hermann’s coat.

“ _Please_. Wanna get you into bed,” Newton says. His teeth bare into vicious, sharp grin. “C’mon. Alice’ll never know, she’s away.”

Hermann breaks away violently. The space left suddenly between them opens wide, yawning, leaving Hermann dizzy on the other side. Teetering on the edge. Toes curling over crumbling rock.

“I can’t,” he says.

His voice feels so far away.

Newton feels far, too.

As do his morals.

Blurry -- distorted by the horizon.

“I can’t,” Hermann says again.

He turns -- _away away away --_ and retreats. He has to. He must. He has to put some space in between the two of them, to tear himself away from the draw of the ghost drift, from the even stronger pull of Newton’s gravity well.

Newton’s voice burns in his ears as he goes, pleas muffled by the the concrete, the humid saline air.

Hermann catches a cab too many blocks away, tired from walking and a little sore, but unable to stop pushing himself from pushing that distance too far. He can still hear Newton in his ears, in his head. The pull is unmistakable. The churning guilt in his stomach is inescapable.

\--

 _distance,_  
_space_  
_don’t let him get too close_

\--

Hermann doesn’t see Newton again for weeks.

He’s not sure who initiates it, this coarse, itching need for distance, himself or Newton -- he just knows that it happens. That neither of them initiate contact. Neither of them reach out into the space between.

The change is abrupt and dizzying. Even Hermann’s quick and sudden withdrawal from nicotine, after the beginnings of the war, had not been this bad. This painful.

This dreadful.

\--

Hermann keeps himself busy.

But there are moments in between in which he is left alone with his thoughts.

Over his morning tea, sweet and with cream, he thinks of Newton and how he used to spend days at a time awake in their shared lab. Hermann remembers, countless times, finding the man asleep on the dilapidated couch they shared or sprawled out unconscious on his desk, nitrile gloves still on his hands. He remembers what Newton looks like when he sleeps restlessly, what he looks like in the mornings, pre-caffeine and post-nightmares.

He knows now what Newton tastes like after a sip of too-sweet tea or coffee, knows how he likes to be kissed -- like the world is still ending, like he is ravenous, like he is one of those beasts he so cherishes.

Hermann also knows he can only avoid Newton for so long.

After all, Newton _is_ an addiction. He is dangerous and he is sweet. Hermann itches with the need for him, with the phantom taste of Newton on his tongue. He burns with the need to feel Newton underneath his fingertips, to see the man sprawled out in his sheets when he so delightfully lets Hermann _take_.

He should be afraid of it, of the inevitable moment they will collide again. He should be remorseful.

Instead, he is excited and a little bit resigned.

He _longs_ for Newton, like an addict awaiting another hit. Just one last time, he tells himself -- every time.

\--

Hermann cannot deny that Newton Geiszler is a part of him, woven into the atoms of his very existence. Even before the drift, before it all, Newton had taken up a considerable amount of space -- too much space -- in Hermann’s head. Now? This is simply the reality he has resigned himself to. One absolutely intertwined with Newton, down to their very cores. Their molecular structure. Perhaps even their souls.

He tries not to look too closely at the chasm that now exists between them, the tearing space full of darkness, full of cold. Across the distance of it all, he can still feel Newton’s yearning, his desire, his ever-present fear. Hermann never asks about that -- _the fear_ \-- he knows better; he feels it too.

Some nights he finds himself surfacing from nightmares about a place, a vast space, too inhuman to comprehend. Too familiar, too, and too tempting to linger in beyond the most fleeting of dreams. He knows that Newton has seen it as well -- and so Hermann does not mention it. He does not need to. The longer his thoughts remain upon that image, the more real it becomes. Neither of them need that reminder, that reality. After all, their own hard-won reality is plenty to divert themselves with: full of new possibilities, new hope, new experiences.

New indulgences, too.

\--

_lonely_

\--

Hermann cannot keep Newton away forever.

\--

 _we are --_  
_so lonely._  
_so alone, so quiet, so without --_  
_it hurts._

\--

At first, Hermann tries, desperately, to keep Newton at arms distance.

His naive resolve lasts all of a week before he finds his will crumbling under Newton’s persistence, his sheer doggedness. Hermann’s walls are made out of straw. Of sand. He doesn’t stand a chance.

“It’s fine,” Newton says.

Somehow, he’s wandered into Hermann’s lab after hours, likely because security at the PPDC facility isn’t going to deny _the_ Doctor Geiszler access, especially not after he saved the world. Newton likely reminded them, not that he had to.

“She’ll never find out,” Newton says.

Hermann groans, dragging his hand over his face. “That doesn’t _help_ , Newton.”

“I know you think --” Newton starts with a tone that Hermann doesn’t want to hear.

Hermann cuts him off. “This isn’t an ethical or moral dilemma, Newton. It is simply _wrong_. End of discussion.”

“But like, we could have talked about it. Discussed it. Did you ever think about _that_?”

“Did you?” Hermann asks.

He knows the answer. Newton knows he knows, too.

Newton rolls his eyes. “No, but --”

“There are no _buts_ ,” Hermann says. “You cannot simply push your way into a solution to every scenario that will yield two positive outcomes. It is _possible_ , yes -- but extremely statistically unlikely.”

 _You cannot have it all_ , Hermann means.

 _You cannot have all of me,_ he also means -- though his confidence on that postulation is much less strong.

Newton’s unwillingness to speak with his partner -- with _Alice_ \-- about this situation speaks volumes. Hermann doesn’t press it, because those words do not need to be spoken out loud; Newton knows how he feels. Newton absolutely knows.

That doesn’t, however, stop Newton from stepping toward him, from closing the yawning chasm between them with his body. He stops mere inches away. Hermann can feel his warmth, his own skin screaming at the lack. The taunt.

Newton smiles. “Okay,” he says. “How about a goodbye kiss, then? For old time’s sake.”

Hermann doesn’t remind Newton that they don’t have any _old times_ in terms of this. They only have the most recent of memories together. Everything is still fresh, still raw.

Still, he cannot stop himself from leaning forward and catching Newton’s lips in his own. In some respect, it is like folding into himself, like connecting a sparking circuit. Like completing a familiar equation to a satisfactory and known end.

Newton’s being is warm and perfect and addictive. His mouth is like home.

The lab is quiet and everyone has gone for the day.

They make it -- barely -- to Hermann’s office, glass doors and all.

\--

It keeps happening.

\--

 _yes:_  
_**more**_

\--

Hermann feels the guilt in layers.

It is nauseating and bitter. Paralyzing, too.

The frequency of their liaisons lessen -- but somehow, everything else in regards to these _encounters_ ramps up, as if to compensate.

Perhaps it is all driven by need, or perhaps by guilt, or perhaps even by the draw of sheer taboo. Perhaps it is a horrendous cocktail of every emotion Hermann has ever felt, two-fold and doubled over with Newton’s, too.

Regardless, it is too much and not enough, all at once and garbled together. It happens less, but Hermann loses himself to it more. He _needs_ it more. He cannot stop _thinking_ about Newton, cannot stop dwelling on the way Newton’s flesh hums beneath his own, the way their breathing syncs, and their heartbeats collide.

Hermann longs for him, for his touch, for their brief moments together. He pines for old times, for the clash of their personalities in a tiny space. He needs Newton, despite it all.

Newton asks for _more_.

And then _more,_ and then _more,_ and then _more_.

And Hermann cannot stop himself from giving Newton everything: his time, as little as there is of it; his energy; his desire -- his love.

And that -- the love -- should come as a surprise, perhaps, but it does not. It is just another integer, another sum of events and feelings and moments. It is inevitable.

There’s no use trying to circumvent the destiny of a sequence, and no use fighting a force of nature, either. And there is no arguing: Newton is the strongest force of nature Hermann has ever encountered. Kaiju included.

It is not new, this fondness in his chest for Newton Geiszler. It was there the very first day that they met, and has been growing steadily since, in jumps and starts, waxing and waning with each passing year. Of course, in the beginning, Hermann was reluctant to call it what it was -- always in denial, in despair over his overwrought feelings. But now, it has grown on him. Like a slow rot, from the inside, out. Only showing signs now on the surface, even though it’s been spreading inside for too long. He cannot be rid of it -- and more so, he does not think he truly wishes to be.

After all, Hermann has been falling for so long. It is only inevitable that he finds himself absolutely and desperately in love. It is only inevitable that he meets the rocky ground at some point. Aflame and alight with desire and avarice.

It should hurt more than it does, Hermann thinks. This is not at all the fairytale everyone dreams of, not at all the happy ending people yearn for.

Newton is running him dry, demanding and pleading for more and more of Hermann with every passing encounter. It is exhausting. And it is exhilarating, too.

\--

 _ours._  
_forever._

\--

Sometimes, the love is too much to bear.

“You’re looking a little tired, Hermann,” Newton says. In a rare display of something akin to affection, he pushes Hermann’s hair out of his face, away from his forehead. “Have you been sleeping?”

“I’m fine, Newton,” Hermann says. Or at least, he thinks he says.

He _hasn’t_ been sleeping well, that much is true. He has thrown himself into his work because that is easy, because numbers make him feel alive in a similar way that Newton does. Numbers make sense, they are logical and steady. His work is new, but the drive behind it is not. It is easy to lose himself in, to not let anything else into his head.

Newton raises an eyebrow. He smiles with too many teeth.

He looks -- a bit -- like a nightmare.

“Are you really fine?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ I be?” Hermann snaps. He feels too stretched, too strung out. He’s not young anymore. He cannot keep running around, sleepless, carrying on a secret affair with a man he loves.

He can’t escape this love, either. And _that_ has him on edge more than anything. Sometimes it is all too much.

“Well,” Newton says, not once stopping his too-affectionate ministrations, even with that too sharp grin on his face. “You just called me _Newt_.”

“I didn’t,” Hermann says, immediately. He couldn’t have. That’s not what he calls Newton.

“You did.”

Hermann thinks, head swimming with exhausted thoughts, clouded with too many emotions. Newton’s pull feels _so close_ right now. Like if Hermann let out a breath for too long, if he relaxed too much, he’d be pulled underneath its current. A little bitter and a bit acidic, but _warm._

 _I’m fine, Newt_ , Hermann had said. He hears it, ringing in his own ears.

Newt presses a kiss, long and slow, to Hermann’s temple. He stays for a little longer, twisted in Hermann’s sheets, than he normally would.

\--

After not seeing Newton for two months -- Hermann is away in Alaska at another PPDC lab, his time filled with endless hours of dark with the occasional break for some truly spectacular displays of the Aurora Borealis -- they crash together again.

Hermann can’t even be mad, afterwards, when he’s spread out on messy, wrinkled sheets, that Newton has destroyed him so. His skin is a constellation of bitemarks and scratches and bruises -- and he has never felt quite so missed, quite so cherished before. He will be reminded of Newton for weeks as he heals, only for have Newton replace them again, later. Just as the last remnants fade. Just like always.

“Don’t go like that again,” Newton says. His voice is firm, but it still sounds like a plea.

Hermann is laying back, staring at the blank white of his ceiling. Too warm, too exhausted. Newton isn’t necessarily _cuddling_ him, because Newton Geiszler doesn’t do that -- strangely -- but he is half-draped over Hermann. Lazy and exhausted. Various points of contact burning hot and bright between the two of them.

“What am I supposed to do without you here?” Newt says, like it’s years ago. “It’s all too quiet with you gone.” Like they see each other every day, still. Not at all like they don’t go weeks on end without a single word.

A week later, Newton leaves for two months.

\--

The cycle repeats itself too many times to count.

\--

Hermann knows that this cannot go on indefinitely. He knows he must break it off sooner, rather than later. But that is far easier said than done.

It’s already been too long.

Years.

 _Years_.

The time flies by. And it slogs.

The moments he spends with Newton always feel fleeting, too ephemeral to hold onto for any longer than a blink of an eye. Before he can even truly appreciate them, they are gone and falling through his fingers and out of his grasp. But the moments in between -- they drag on, like the dredges of the war. Like the endless days and nights in his lab. Like the fog after a nightmare full of too many thoughts, full of a multiplicity of consciousness.

Hermann only has this kind of dedication to his numbers -- or so he thought.

He didn’t think he had the energy to keep feeding himself to Newton, but he never seems to totally run dry. It’s like Newton knows when not to see him, when it’ll push Hermann too thin and leave him too transparent. He knows when to come back, when Hermann is ready to be drained of energy once gain.

It’s like Newton knows just how not to break Hermann permanently, but instead leaves him with fractures splitting down the seams.

Never totally healing and simultaneously never quite splitting apart.

It is fundamentally unhealthy, Hermann knows.

And yet, when he thinks of sharing this feeling, this _love_ , with someone else -- well, the thought makes him sick. Anyone else would pale in comparison to Newt. Anyone else would fall terribly short.

No one else will ever know him quite like Newton Geiszler.

\--

 _pulling away_  
_distancing_  
_keep him keep him keep him_  
_don’t want to be alone again_  
_so   a l o n e_

\--

“I just redid my kitchen,” Newt tells him.

For once, they’re fully clothed and in Hermann’s living room. Sitting on furniture like reasonable people, instead of tangled in Hermann’s sheets. Hermann isn’t sure how he managed to convince Newt to stay through dinner and then _past_ it, but there he is, sprawled in one of Hermann’s armchairs, looking like he belongs there.

It’s very domestic.

“You don’t cook,” Hermann says.

“I _could_ cook. I _can_ , now that I have a fancy kitchen,” Newt says. He’s got one of Hermann’s recently published articles propped open on his chest and is skimming it, apparently, because he then says: “This is pretty good, dude.”

It’s high praise, considering Newton normally doesn’t care about maths. He doesn’t find the field captivating like Hermann does.

Though -- maybe he does.

Hermann doesn’t need Newt’s approval on scientific articles he doesn’t have the proper credentials to be judging, but Hermann feels the pride swell in his chest regardless, unbidden. “Thank you,” he says, because he means it.

Because he loves Newton even though he shouldn’t. Because Newton’s approval is far more meaningful than it should be. Because Hermann has no chance, anymore.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” Newt asks, setting the book down on his chest, bending the spine. Hermann grits his teeth together and instead watches the way Newton plays with the corner of the book with his fingers, the way he fans the pages out underneath his thumb.

“That was rather the point of the article,” Hermann says. “The numbers all point to _yes_.”

Whether it be in a year -- very unlikely -- or three hundred -- _extremely likely_ \-- the answer is yes.

“No,” Newt says, tipping his head up, eyes unfocused, unseeing, at the ceiling. “But, like, _personally_. Not professionally. Do you think they’ll come back?”

 _Do you want them to come back_ , Hermann hears.

Hermann knows that Newt misses the kaiju. Hermann would be lying if he said he didn’t miss them to some extent, too. He misses them like Newt does, but he also misses the chaos that came with them. The near-constant adrenaline rush, the uncertainty of life. It was, in some ways, a very easy life to live.

This life is far more complicated. Far more mundane. Far more -- disappointing.

The freedom from the Kaiju is nothing like he imagined it to be.

Hermann doesn’t have an answer for Newt. Not one that he can bring himself to utter out loud, anyway.

It doesn’t really matter. Despite the time, the phantom drift between them is still there, tiny ripples of a familiar consciousness brushing up against his own. A sea of shared experiences between them, pulling like a tide.

Newt is an electric current running through those waters.

It will always be there, Hermann fears.

It doesn’t matter what Hermann says or even what he thinks too loudly. Because Newton smiles, too knowingly, up at the ceiling and crosses his arms behind his head.

Too smug. Too much like he’s won a game Hermann didn’t even know they were playing.

\--

Hermann doesn’t know exactly what Newton is working on in that fancy lab of his, just that it takes up most of his time these days.

“I barely even get to spend any time with Alice,” Newt tells him -- between kisses, after Hermann opens his door at two in the morning to find Newton standing there in his hallway. Of course, Newt had _knocked_ \-- and had rung Hermann’s bell at least twice -- but Hermann knew he’d be there, anyway.

Like a sixth sense.

It doesn’t always work so cleanly, so precisely. Hermann can’t always anticipate Newton’s movements, because there’s no exact science to it, because likely Newton can’t even predict himself, most of the time. But sometimes, when the stars align just right, Hermann just _knows_.

He’s already in slippers and his dressing gown, sipping on a cup of freshly brewed tea, when Newton knocks for the first time.

Hermann doesn’t tell Newt that he should be spending _this_ moment with Alice, instead of showing up here, at Hermann’s, clearly straight out of his own lab. Newton still smells like chemicals, like computers, like he hasn’t slept for days. He doesn’t tell Newt that he should _sleep_ , because Hermann is greedy for any hint of time he can spend with this man, ravenous like a starving dog.

“Come in,” Hermann says, even though Newton is already in Hermann’s hallway, already shucking his jacket and closing the door behind him.

He steals Hermann’s tea and drinks it in one long gulp, uncaring for the temperature. Uncommenting about the sweetness.

“Take me to bed,” Newt says. When he kisses Hermann again, he tastes sweet.

The guilt rolls over Hermann like a storm. He can feel the pressure change, the hair on the back of his neck rising. “Didn’t Alice move in with you?” Hermann asks.

He _hates_ saying that name. Hates the way it tastes in his mouth.

He hates acknowledging that he’s complacent in this. That he knows his own wrongdoing. That he knows he’s stealing moments with Newton from someone else.

But Hermann is not a good enough man to back away. Instead, he presses in, stealing a kiss before Newton can answer.

“She’ll think I worked late. Slept at the lab,” Newt says when Hermann pulls back. “She won’t know.”

\--

Hermann is too desperately in love, to abysmally hungry and thirsty all at once, to do more than constantly want for a shred of Newton’s affection.

He’s past guilt, past sadness, past yearning for more. He has accepted his fate, even though he knows that it will be his inevitable demise.

\--

For a while, the pattern holds.

\--

But the reality is that Herman understands sequences, just as he understands Newton Geiszler. Just as he understands himself in conjunction _with_ Newton Geiszler.

This plateau cannot hold steady.

He knows, just as he knows the constants of the universe, that something, at some point, must give.

Strangely, he just never figured it would be _him_ that severs it all. That he would be the one to call the last straw.

\--

 _want it all_  
_want everything_  
_build connections, strengthen, **g r o w**_  
_we can have it -- we can keep it all_

\--

It is a abysmally nice day when Hermann’s life shatters irrevocably.

They have a rare overlap of coinciding days off, opposed to trying to find time together in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of night. For once, Newton is free of conferences or calls or the hustle of his work day. And, also for once, Hermann has divested himself of his work responsibilities for the day and has left the lab in the capable hands of his support staff. It helps remarkably that his current projects must sit undisturbed for twenty-four hours -- but in the event of an emergency, his staff has his phone number.

Newton had posed the idea of a day spent together -- _just like old times, dude --_ after hearing that Hermann would have a day off.

Hermann can’t say that he was unsurprised at the idea. Newton has become increasingly busy with each passing month. They barely find time to send an occasional email, much less slot their time together.

But Newt had cleared his schedule for Hermann.

And Hermann still isn’t entirely sure what to think of that.

They visit one of the war memorials first.

It is a sobering experience -- somber and brutal and fraught with memory. But the hope that shines behind it all springs eternal. The memories of the past, the truly human reach for the future. The _drive_ to persevere. It’s all so _much_. So dizzying. It makes Hermann lean into Newt’s touch a bit more whenever he is steered this way or that.

One of the Kaiju museums is next.

It is strange, seeing replicas of creatures that his colleagues destroyed. And even stranger: the replicas of those who destroyed his colleagues.

Hermann cannot bring himself to hate these beasts as viscerally, as vehemently as before. Not with Newton’s fascination spinning free in his head, not with the phantom prickle of an alien consciousness there as well. He _understands_ these creatures in a way he never did, before.

He dislikes them, yes -- but he cannot bring himself close to _hate_ any longer.

It is always a strange revelation, one he tries not to dwell on much.

“ _Hermann!_ ” Newt says, fingers wrapping around Hermann’s arm right above his elbow. Familiar touch near his pulse.

Hermann doesn’t need to look to know that Newt is staring up at a not-quite-life-sized replica of Otachi -- and its offspring.

The goosebumps are unexpected.

It could be Newton’s touch, the way that Newt steps close to Hermann in excitement, and it could be something else, too. Something a little bit like longing, a little bit like sadness with a heaping dose of intimacy in all of the empty spaces.

After all, they both know this creature -- or the creature that it bears the detailed likeness of -- so personally.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Newton says, head resting against Hermann’s shoulder.

The words are said with the same reverence that Newton reserves for speaking about Alice. And, occasionally, if he is very drunk or very tired, about Hermann.

“She is,” Hermann hears himself say. Not simply to placate Newton, but, at least partially, because the statement is _true._

The Kaiju are horrifically beautiful creatures -- Hermann sees it now. He understands Newton’s fascination, understands the gorgeous lines that wrap over every inch of Newton’s skin. He looks up at Otachi and at its offspring and finds that he is still in awe, heart thudding just the way it did that day, so many years ago.

It’s easy, now, to feel the pull of the ghost drift, swirling next to him with the same slurry of emotions as Hermann is feeling himself. He feels the tug, the way his consciousness wants to bend, to dip into the stream of it. He indulges slightly, loses himself in the warmth that is Newton and all of his color, all his bubbling vibrance. It is so familiar, so freeing, so viciously self-indulgent.

For a flash of a second, he is overwhelmed by it, by the _love_ , by the _desire_ , by the religious _adoration_ spread out in all directions.

“Woah,” Newton says, leaning even further against Hermann’s weight. It feels as if they might topple at any given moment. “That’s a trip.”

“Yes,” Hermann says, pulling back slightly from both Newton’s warmth and his frenzy of emotions. It’s too loud, too chaotic, too overstimulating. Hermann loves it too much. The longer he lets it last, the harder it is to pull himself away from that heat. “That it is.”

They have a dinner planned for later in the evening. It feels too much like a date, like something Hermann should feel immeasurably guilty about. Unfortunately, the feeling is beginning to grow so familiar that it is hard to maintain for any length of time.

The plans don’t stop Newton from dragging Hermann to an overpriced sushi restaurant for a late lunch, despite Hermann’s many protests.

“I get paid _so much,_ my dude,” Newt tells him.

The fish are farm raised, hence the price; it would be unwise to eat much of anything from the oceans at this stage, especially uncooked. But Newton is paying and Hermann hasn’t had sushi in a _very_ long time -- so he acquiesces.

He even _enjoys_ it a little bit.

Which is perhaps the first sign that their day is headed toward a irreversible downward spiral.

Hermann is too comfortable, too indulgent. He should have backed away from this years ago, when it was evident that he was merely Newton’s plaything, his _toy_. But love is a strange animal; it has turned Hermann flimsy, made him soft.

The guilt is still there, inescapable, but it’s no longer an insidious riptide, waiting to pull him under for days -- but instead it is just the inevitable rolling of waves. Lulling and ever-present. After a while, he has simply gotten used to it.

He should feel jealous of Alice, of Newt’s undying love for her. He should feel bad, for taking some of that affection away from her and focusing it in and on himself. He should drown in it -- but his head stays steadfastly above water. He should feel despicable, greedy, selfish. And he does -- he feels all of it, but it is simply the underscore of his love for Newton Geiszler. It is unhealthy and brutal, but it is not debilitating. It is like his need for his cane -- simply a part of his life. Inconvenient at times, but something he has grown accustomed to.

His love for Newt is part of himself.

That does not mean that there is no line, however, that he will not cross. He thought, perhaps, that nothing was beneath him at this point. But it turns out: if there _is_ a line, Newton will find it.

“So,” Newt says, after another round of toro and sake.

Hermann isn’t sure exactly how they’re meant to have dinner after this, but he can’t argue. It’s nice to spend time with Newton that isn’t spent between the sheets, hurried and frantic. It’s nice to see him, to speak with him, as a friend, a peer, and as someone who has seen the inside of Hermann’s head.

“Yes?” Hermann asks, fingers around a warm cup of tea.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

Hermann should feel nervous by now. But Newton has already asked so much of him: what’s one more favor to stretch him even thinner?

“Alice and I are going to elope,” Newt says. “In Bermuda.”

Hermann raises his eyebrows, trying to ignore the churning in his gut. He knew that this moment was coming. It hurts both less and more than he imagined it. No amount of preparation could brace him for it -- and yet, he knows very little will _change_. If Newt is not bound by the ties of fidelity, a ring and a signature on paper will hardly do anything to change that.

The thought of it though, somehow, makes Hermann feel more uneasy. More sick to his stomach at his own inability to pull away.

But that doesn’t answer the main question:

“What is the favor, Newton?”

He’s not entirely positive that he wants to know, but he cannot simply let it rest. Besides: Newt would likely tell him anyway, and at least this way Hermann will not feel blindsided. Or at least -- that’s the goal, anyway. It doesn’t help, in the end.

“I want you to come with,” Newton says. “I want you to be my best man.”

Everything -- the universe and all of its disparate pieces -- comes grinding to a halt.

Newton is staring at him over expensive, fatty sushi, decadent sake still clinging to his lips from his last sip. His clothes are _nice_ \-- nothing like what he used to wear in the lab with Hermann. His sleeves are buttoned down at his wrists, covering his cacophony of brilliant, beautiful colors. He looks expectant, eager, _happy_. Like this isn’t an absolutely absurd thing to ask. Like he isn’t a different person than he was so many years ago.

“Newton, I--” Hermann begins, even though he doesn’t know what to say.

At this point, however, it would be impossible to miss the steep decline in his mood. The furrow in his brow. The frown on his lips. He can feel them there, just like he can feel the lead weight settling in his gut. The bomb of Newton’s own devising -- now primed, and ready to detonate.

“You’re my _best friend_ , Hermann,” Newton says, likely trying to head Hermann off at the pass. Newton _knows_. He could not have missed it.

Hermann clenches his teeth, fury rising in his chest at the assumption, at the sheer nonchalance.

“You expect me to come with you,” Hermann says. “To Bermuda. With you and your -- _fiancé_.” It’s harder to say than he would like. “To stand _next to you._ To witness you. And to, what, wait around until you’re done with your little vacation?”

The inevitable sunburn sounds refreshing, compared to what Newton is asking of him.

“Well, no, obviously we’d find some time together…”

Hermann feels his heart clench, the fury in his gut ignited. “That’s _worse_ , Newton. That is unmistakably and absolutely _worse_.”

The implication that Newton seeks to _continue_ this little charade of theirs _while on his honeymoon_ makes Hermann sick to his stomach.

The idea that Newton thinks that he can ask this of Hermann with no repercussions, with no apology, with no _thought_ , speaks volumes.

“No,” Hermann says. Decisive. It’s bitter and heavy on his tongue.

Newton opens his mouth, tries to wedge a word into the wall Hermann has already put up, but it’s too late.

 _He_ is too late.

“I will do no such thing,” Hermann continues. “This little charade has gone on long enough. I should never let it continue -- no, I should never have let it _begin_. This person I have become with you is not _who I am_.”

Not that he knows who he is anymore. The lines between himself and Newton Geiszler have begun to blur so irrevocably that it’s impossible to define himself down to one single organism.

But he can salvage something of himself. He must.

“We have been doing this for _years_ , Newton. _Years,_ and I have not seen the light. Years, and you have convinced me that this is _fine_ , that this is _living_.” Hermann clenches his teeth, his fists, his pride. “There is more to life than settling as someone’s afterthought. I would have thought you -- _you_ , of all people -- wouldn’t do this. So, no. No, I am not witnessing your marriage. No, I am not being your best man. No, I am not _going to Bermuda_ with you and your fiancé, your _wife_ , just to try to sneak moments together in between. That is -- that is --” Hermann thinks that he might, actually, be sick. “That is _abominable._ I will no longer take part in any of this.”

“Hermann,” Newton says, reaching out in front of him, fist clenching at the empty air as Hermann pushes back his chair. It screeches loud in the quiet restaurant, but Hermann doesn’t care. He’s standing now, every part of him shaking with rage, with righteous indignation.

“We are _nothing_ to each other, Newton,” Hermann says, holding fast, holding steady -- otherwise, he might break apart completely. “I am through. I am through with this and I am through with you.” He cannot, but he _must_. “Do not contact me. I do not wish to hear from you ever again.”

Newton’s voice rings in Hermann’s ears for hours afterwards. For days.

\--

Newton calls him three times the next day.

Once, the day after.

And then, never again.

\--

_s o    a l o n e_

\--

The next time Hermann sees Newton is almost a year later, at a professional conference. One which he had not known Newton had planned on attending.

Hermann is scheduled to speak on his own, for the first time in years, to a group of experimental physicists on the first day of the conference. He has every intention of ducking out immediately afterward, of making a clean and tactical escape. Hermann doesn’t need to network -- what he needs is to not be surrounded by old memories and unfamiliar faces.

It’s strange, doing this whole production without a partner, without someone at his back. Yes, Newton had a habit of monopolizing conversations and presentations, but Hermann had never _minded_ \-- not after drifting together, anyway. But now, he is without. Without a shoulder to lean on, without someone to cut him off mid-sentence to divert the topic to something more personally interesting. It is both good and bad. Hermann cannot help but relive the ancient memories the situation dredges up.

After all, it’s been years since he attended one of these things. He hasn’t, since Newton.

Hermann knows that he is a simple man. Confrontation is not his strong suit. Avoiding Newton -- and subsequently unsavory past memories -- had been an easy solution.

However temporary that it was.

The conference center is huge and cold and full of people. It’s a mass of bodies swarming around in between scheduled blocks -- chaotic, frenzied. It used to be that Hermann would simply follow Newton through the throng. He would let Newton part the waters and be pulled behind him, like a magnet, blind, but safe in their number of two -- but Hermann makes his own way, now. Alone, in the crowd.

It is unpleasant, yes -- but it is not insurmountable.

He is proud, even. That he has done this without failure, without someone by his side and partially in his head. It seems almost easy, for how difficult he kept imagining it to be.

That is, until it all unravels.

The second he sees Newton, everything stops: the noise in the room falls to a hush, movement ceases around them, and Hermann’s breath leaves his chest so quickly it feels like he’s been punched.

Of course, none of this actually happens -- except, perhaps, for the lead weight filling his chest, taking up the space where his breath might usually be.

Across the crowded room, their eyes meet. And lock.

Newton freezes too, jolted as if shocked by something static. His eyes are wide and bright under the fluorescent lights, nearly inhuman in color, in sheen.

It should be surprising, but it isn’t. Hermann had not _known_ that Newton would be here -- and yet.

And _yet_.

Of course, now that he has seen Newton with his own two eyes, Hermann realizes he could _feel_ Newton the moment he walked into the building. There had been something electric about the air, something familiar. And perhaps that is all simply a mirage, a delusion based on the truth of Newton’s presence here, the infinite power of suggestion -- but it is how Hermann feels. And now that it is there, he cannot deny it, cannot forget it.

But that does not mean that he has to acknowledge Newton.

Newton opens his mouth, shouts Hermann’s name, and steps forward toward him, into the fray.

It pains Hermann to simply blink, to turn and lose himself amongst the crowd, but he must. And he does. For the first time today, he is glad for the people, for the shelter of anonymity.

He pushes through, past foreign bodies, past tumbling conversations and words. He scrambles with finesse, moving quickly but steadily -- sideways and forward and sideways again -- until he is out of the crowd, until he is in the safety of a space far away.

He does not see Newton again during the conference.

He does not see Newton again for quite some time.

\--

Time passes. The yawning chasm in Hermann’s chest -- the space Newton hollowed out for himself -- it begins to close, to heal.

\--

When Hermann finally sees Newton again, it is stilted, awkward.

The future of the Jaeger program is in danger and Newton Geiszler is seemingly in charge of its demise.

But --

Seeing Newton, being near to him -- it is like falling into a familiar tune. Hermann hears it in his bones before he even speaks to Newton, before he even extends the olive branch of his own biological research, the unique chemical properties of Kaiju blood.

A siren song Newton should never have been able to resist.

It is, perhaps, too late.

\--

It was always, perhaps, too late.

\--

 _help_  
_help_  
_**h e l p**_  
_h e l p h e l p h e l p h e l p h e l p h e l p_

\--

It is brutal, seeing Newton in his cell.

Always strapped to a chair, always contained like the brain he kept so secretly in his apartment. Sometimes clawing and crying, sometimes motionless, nearly catatonic.

It is nauseating.

And yet, Hermann cannot bring himself to cease his visits.

Every Saturday, like clockwork.

“You are pathetic,” Newton tells him. _The thing inside Newton tells him._

If Hermann steps too close he can feel the pull of it, the ghost drift. He recognizes it now, that strange and acidic, alien pull. Something similar to Newton -- but off. Not quite human, but all too familiar. If Hermann steps too close, he can feel it tugging, scrabbling its way toward him, desperate.

It is _so alone_.

It hurts to think about, to let his mind wander too close to.

Hermann doesn’t examine that, much. It doesn’t feel safe. It’s useless, anyway. Only dead ends, there.

“You are pitiful,” the precursors tell him in Newton’s familiar voice. “Did you think what you had was special?” It laughs and laughs and sounds nothing like Newton. Too mean, too bitter, too lonely. “Did you think you ever had him at all? How _sad_.”

Hermann thinks of Newton’s hand on his throat. Of the tears, unshed, in Newton’s eyes.

He thinks of small moments between the two of them, on cotton sheets, on crowded streets, moments where he can _see_ pieces of Newton in his memory, shining through. He knows he can. He _must_.

He thinks of fingers clenching around his throat. Tight, and then tighter, still. He thinks of years filled of selfishness, of greed, of manipulation.

“He’s _gone_ ,” Newton says.

Every Saturday, Hermann visits, still.

**Author's Note:**

> comments super appreciated. come talk to me about this -- i have a lot to say about it. 
> 
> i had about 2/3 of this written back in april. it took me until now to finish it.
> 
> i haven't read or written anything pacific rim in at least two years so i hope this is even marginally okay. 
> 
> thank you to [littlesystems](http://littlesystems.tumblr.com) for the idea and (as always) plot help and [bazanite](http://bazanite.tumblr.com) for helping me make this happen and cheerleading. without you dudes, this wouldn't have ever gotten off the ground.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](http://brawlite.tumblr.com), if you are so inclined.


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